The figure below utilizes the International Association for Public Participation (IAP2) spectrum to categorize and organize open government tools. Often open government tools can be utilized in very different capacities to engage the public. For instance, an open government mobile application could be used to inform the public or facilitate collaborative design. For that reason, tools can occupy multiple categories. This table not only provides a way to identify tools to help accomplish open government goals, it also highlights the relationship of these tools to varying levels of public participation. Tools were color-coded if they could be implemented to achieve multiple levels of public participation within the IAP2 Spectrum. Each color corresponds to the lowest level of the spectrum the tools can be applied to, to be reasonably achieved. Tools that are not color-coded were unique to one category. While some categorizations could be open to debate, one of the uses of this table is to better understand that tools have barriers that are either inherent or through lack of design. As an example, emailing can facilitate public participation through acquiring feedback and exchanging ideas but isn’t a very reasonable medium for public decision making without the aid of other facilitation tools or concepts. On the other hand, a mobile application could be used to achieve any level of public participation but is limited by its own design and the open government infrastructure it is utilizing. For one other example, a public comment section and a collaborative e-environment could be in the exact same medium and format with only the goal of the interaction changing. By categorizing open government tools using the IAP2 Public Participation Spectrum, insights into the potential benefits, uses, and limitations of open government tools are revealed. The IAP2 spectrum also draws attention to how these open government tools correspond to higher levels of public participation. The results for the categorization of open government tools using the IAP2 Spectrum are displayed on the table below.
Download the complete research paper,”Open Government: Innovative Practices” (McGlinchey, 2016), through the link below.
http://dustinmcg.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Open-Government-Innovative-Practices.pdf
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